Hekte

Mytilene and Phokaia operated a formal agreement — likely established by the mid-fifth century — to issue electrum hektai on a shared weight standard, a rare instance of inter-polis monetary cooperation in the Aegean world. Mytilene's issues circulated well beyond Lesbos, finding their way into hoards from the Black Sea to Egypt. The electrum itself was not refined to a fixed fineness; alloy composition varies measurably across dies, which complicates any attempt to assign precise intrinsic values to individual pieces.